IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/acctbr/v39y2009i3p191-210.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Accounting standards and the economics of standards

Author

Listed:
  • Geoff Meeks
  • G.M. Peter Swann

Abstract

The paper draws on the economics of standards to inform current debates on international accounting standards. It traces the benefits claimed for standards – their contribution to the division of labour, innovation, trust, etc.; and the costs, including entry barriers and compliance costs. It illustrates these benefits and costs with cases from accounting regulation. It adopts two approaches to the question whether accounting regulation is best achieved by a single set of standards for the world, or by competing systems. The first approach focuses on contributions in economics, including the theory of standards races and of optimal variety. In these analyses, only in special circumstances has a single standard emerged as the superior outcome. The second approach introduces evidence from accounting and finance on the problems of translation with globalised financial markets, and on the relative costs and benefits of multiple standard‐setters or a single global scheme. The most compelling net benefits of harmonisation arise for small economies moving from idiosyncratic to international standards.

Suggested Citation

  • Geoff Meeks & G.M. Peter Swann, 2009. "Accounting standards and the economics of standards," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(3), pages 191-210.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:acctbr:v:39:y:2009:i:3:p:191-210
    DOI: 10.1080/00014788.2009.9663360
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00014788.2009.9663360
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00014788.2009.9663360?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Babbage, Charles, 1832. "Economy of Machinery and Manufactures," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number babbage1832.
    2. Knut Blind, 2004. "The Economics of Standards," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3392.
    3. Camfferman, Kees & Zeff, Stephen A., 2007. "Financial Reporting and Global Capital Markets: A History of the International Accounting Standards Committee, 1973-2000," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199296293, Decembrie.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wafaa Salah & Abdallah Abdel-Salam, 2019. "The Effects of International Financial Reporting Standards on Financial Reporting Quality," Athens Journal of Business & Economics, Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER), vol. 5(3), pages 221-242, July.
    2. Oulasvirta, Lasse, 2014. "The reluctance of a developed country to choose International Public Sector Accounting Standards of the IFAC. A critical case study," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 272-285.
    3. Beke, Jeno, 2010. "Business and economic aspects of accounting standardization in Hungary," Business and Economic Horizons (BEH), Prague Development Center (PRADEC), vol. 2(2), pages 1-7, July.
    4. Aida R. Lozada Rivera, 2015. "SEDUCTIVE ROUTE TOWARDS CONVERGENCE DISCLOSURE: IFRS FOR SMEs,RUTA SEDUCTORA HACIA LA CONVERGENCIA DIVULGACION: NIIF PARA PYMES," Revista Internacional Administracion & Finanzas, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 8(2), pages 83-103.
    5. Satoshi Taguchi & Masayuki Ueeda & Kazunori Miwa & Satoru Mizutani, 2013. "Economic Consequences of Global Accounting Convergence: An Experimental Study," The Japanese Accounting Review, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University, vol. 3, pages 103-120, December.
    6. Anubha Srivastava & Preeti Kulshrestha, 2021. "Ind-AS Enforcement in India: An Assessment of Readiness, Benefits and Key Challenges," Paradigm, , vol. 25(1), pages 25-41, June.
    7. Beke, Jenő & Tiszberger, Mónika, 2012. "International Accounting Standardisation in Hungarian Practice," Public Finance Quarterly, Corvinus University of Budapest, vol. 57(4), pages 412-425.
    8. Charity Mhaka, 2014. "IPSAS, A Guaranteed Way of Quality Government Financial Reporting? A Comparative Analysis of the Existing Cash Accounting and IPSAS Based Accounting Reporting," International Journal of Financial Economics, Research Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 3(3), pages 134-141.
    9. Francesco De Luca & Jenice Prather-Kinsey, 2018. "Legitimacy theory may explain the failure of global adoption of IFRS: the case of Europe and the U.S," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 22(3), pages 501-534, September.
    10. David Procházka, 2015. "Is a Full International Accounting Convergence Desirable? [Je žádoucí úplná konvergence účetního výkaznictví?]," Český finanční a účetní časopis, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2015(3), pages 7-23.
    11. Mohd Taufik Mohd Suffian & Zuraidah Mohd Sanusi & Mohd Shatari Abd Ghafar & Effiezal Aswadi Abd Wahab, 2018. "Managing Related Party Transactions on Earnings Quality," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 8(1), pages 484-496, January.
    12. Clare Wang, 2014. "Accounting Standards Harmonization and Financial Statement Comparability: Evidence from Transnational Information Transfer," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(4), pages 955-992, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Büthe Tim, 2010. "Engineering Uncontestedness? The Origins and Institutional Development of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(3), pages 1-64, October.
    2. Knut Blind & Andre Jungmittag, 2008. "The impact of patents and standards on macroeconomic growth: a panel approach covering four countries and 12 sectors," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 51-60, February.
    3. Chen, Natalie & Novy, Dennis, 2012. "On the measurement of trade costs: direct vs. indirect approaches to quantifying standards and technical regulations," World Trade Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(3), pages 401-414, July.
    4. Gilles, Robert P. & Pesce, Marialaura & Diamantaras, Dimitrios, 2020. "The provision of collective goods through a social division of labour," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 287-312.
    5. Martijn Van Den Hurk & Koen Verhoest, 2016. "The challenge of using standard contracts in public-private partnerships," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(2), pages 278-299, February.
    6. Jong-Hyun Paik & Moon-Koo Kim & Jong-Hyun Park, 2017. "The antecedents and consequences of technology standardizations in Korean IT small and medium-sized enterprises," Information Technology and Management, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 293-304, December.
    7. Clougherty, Joseph A. & Grajek, Michał, 2014. "International standards and international trade: Empirical evidence from ISO 9000 diffusion," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 70-82.
    8. Iñaki Heras-Saizarbitoria & Germán Arana & Ernesto Cilleruelo, 2013. "Adoption of ISO 9000 management standard in EU's transition economies: the case of the Baltic states," Journal of Business Economics and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 481-499, June.
    9. Robert K. Larson & Paul J. Herz, 2013. "A Multi-Issue/Multi-Period Analysis of the Geographic Diversity of IASB Comment Letter Participation," Accounting in Europe, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 99-151, June.
    10. Choung, Jae-Yong & Ji, Illyong & Hameed, Tahir, 2011. "International Standardization Strategies of Latecomers: The Cases of Korean TPEG, T-DMB, and Binary CDMA," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 824-838, May.
    11. Yang, Dan & Liu, Zimin, 2012. "Does farmer economic organization and agricultural specialization improve rural income? Evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 990-993.
    12. Jean-Louis Peaucelle, 2012. "Rhetoric and logic in Smith's Description of the Division of Labor," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(3), pages 385-408, May.
    13. Molina Sánchez, Horacio & Bautista Mesa, Rafael, 2018. "La participación en el /Participation in the IASB Due Process," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 36, pages 429-458, Mayo.
    14. S. Susela Devi & R. Helen Samujh, 2015. "The Political Economy of Convergence: The Case of IFRS for SMEs," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 25(2), pages 124-138, June.
    15. David Alexander & Anne Le Manh-Béna & Olivier J. Ramond, 2013. "Can the conceptual framework be all things to all (wo)men?," Post-Print hal-00991959, HAL.
    16. Hao Zhang & Jiadong Jiang & Liwei Zheng & Xiangzhen Li, 2019. "The interaction between standards development and economic growth of China," International Journal of Quality Innovation, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 1-13, December.
    17. Stephen A. Zeff & Christopher W. Nobes, 2010. "Commentary: Has Australia (or Any Other Jurisdiction) ‘Adopted’ IFRS?," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 20(2), pages 178-184, June.
    18. Olivier E. Malay, 2021. "How to Articulate Beyond GDP and Businesses’ Social and Environmental Indicators?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 1-25, May.
    19. Francesco De Luca & Jenice Prather-Kinsey, 2018. "Legitimacy theory may explain the failure of global adoption of IFRS: the case of Europe and the U.S," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 22(3), pages 501-534, September.
    20. David Simpson, 2013. "The Rediscovery of Classical Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15080.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:acctbr:v:39:y:2009:i:3:p:191-210. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RABR20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.